No celebrations at Gordon Brown's stamp duty launch

A less festive relaunch has never been seen. It was not just that the bottle of champagne failed to break on the ship Gordon Brown was sending down the slipway: there was no champagne in the first place.

Nor was there a cheering crowd. The whole event took place without a live audience. The nearest Mr Brown came to the British public was when he allowed himself to be filmed talking to a young man of rather odd demeanour in the kitchen of a shared ownership flat in Ealing, west London.

Nor, worst of all, did there turn out to be anything as substantial as a ship. There was instead a minor announcement about stamp duty. Some of us had imagined this meant the duty of Mr Brown to stamp on Alistair Darling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for making such unnecessarily pessimistic comments at the weekend, when he declared that economic conditions "are arguably the worst they've been in 60 years".

Why had Mr Brown not sacked Mr Darling? We were instead presented with a paltry one-year rise of £50,000 in the stamp duty threshold, and some other even less dramatic measures.

It was raining heavily, but Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary, appeared under an umbrella to tell us that "my package today" is about helping "decent families" avoid the horror of repossession.

How Miss Blears beamed at us. She specialises in a coercive perkiness which makes one want to throw a brick at the television set. Incidentally, we were watching Miss Blears on television rather than seeing her in the flesh because on ringing Downing Street to ask where and when we could witness the relaunch, we were told "it's not going to be open to journalists".

Throughout this event, or non-event, it was painfully clear that the man in greatest danger of having his house repossessed is Mr Brown. A year ago, when he was still enjoying the political honeymoon which began when he moved into his dream home at Number Ten, he proved too timid to seal his lease on the property by seeking our approval at a general election.

Nowadays he behaves like a husband who fears that if he opens his mouth, he will get his head bitten off. He said a few words to camera in the kitchen of the shared ownership flat in Ealing, about showing "that our economy is resilient and will come through these problems", but left Mr Darling to give a longer interview.

The Chancellor did so in an echoing room at the Treasury, where he said: "The purpose of today's measures is to help people through a difficult time...help people get through what is a difficult circumstance."

When challenged about his "worst in 60 years" remark, Mr Darling added that although "we're running like everyone else into turbulent times just now...I'm optimistic we will get through this."

Like Mr Brown, Mr Darling is hopeless at conveying a genuine sense of optimism. Cheerfulness is not their thing, and the more they strain after it the less convincing they sound. This was not so much a relaunch as a vain attempt to give the impression of activity, and thus conceal the paralysis which has become the distinguishing feature of Mr Brown's premiership.

Mr Darling emphasized his similarity to Mr Brown by reminding us that "the Prime Minister and I have worked closely together for getting on for 25 years now". Perhaps this is one reason why Mr Brown hesitates to throw the hapless Mr Darling overboard. But such delay removes most of the credit the Prime Minister might get for doing the right thing.